There are many touching moments when attending local sports Halls of Fame, especially for a longtime sports columnist like me. One of my most touching moments occurred last week at the UTEP Athletic Hall of Fame Dinner when I saw a couple of 88-year-olds get together.
Andy Everest and Fred Wendt were teammates during one of UTEP’s greatest football years, the late 1940s. Wendt set a national single-game rushing record of 326 yards that was to stand for many years as the Miners recorded an 8-2-1 record in 1948.
Everest was the center and a ferocious linebacker on that team and also the next year when the Miners went 8-2-1 again and defeated Georgetown 33-20 in the Sun Bowl.
EVEREST WAS one of the inductees to the UTEP Athletic Hall of Fame this year. Wendt was inducted in 2005. I saw them both play for the Miners so you can imagine the warmth I felt when I saw them get together after the banquet.
Both 88 years old, Everett gets around in a wheelchair and Wendt with the aid of a cane now but both are as alert and sharp mentally as any young man.
I chatted with them for a while and took their photo before going home with tingles running up and down my spine.
DAVID LATTIN, the big man in the center for the 1966 NCAA national basketball champion Miners, was another inductee this year.
He made an observation in his acceptance speech that really set me to thinking. He said, “I hate to think what would have happened if we had lost to Kentucky in 1966.” He didn’t elaborate but I knew what he meant and he confirmed it when I talked to him after his speech.
“I’m sure that the country would have seen race relations continue to improve but it would have been much slower,” he said.
I’d never thought of it that way but he’s right.
ALL INDUCTEES got standing ovations from the folks at the banquet. Inductees this year besides Lattin and Everest were:
Gary Brewster, one of UTEP’s greatest basketball players during the 1970s. Coach Don Haskins called him one of his best ever.
James Munyala, one of the best distance runners ever at UTEP.
Kim Turner, perhaps the most highly successful woman athlete ever at UTEP. She won seven –yes, seven – national championships in one of the toughest track events, the hurdles.
TRIVIA QUESTION: There was a tennis player who played at Wimbledon and had a major role in a James Bond movie. Can you name him? Answer at end.
SEVERAL READERS have asked if the late Jim Wardy of Austin and Cathedral High School football fame is related to former El Paso mayor Joe Wardy. Yes, Jim was his uncle. Jim had another nephew, Mike Wardy, who joined the Marines then went to Kansas City and Omaha with the INS and DHS/ICE, retiring as the Resident Agent-in-Charge in Omaha in 2007. Brothers Joe and Mike are still alive and well. Wardy family members were early settlers in El Paso.
THE FIRST TEE of Greater El Paso program has gone so well this fall that head lady Kristi Albers has added another session. Whenever I see a kid, male or female, swing a club I think of Tiger Woods. He started swinging one almost from the moment he could stand up. For more information on the new session contact Kristi at Kalbers@thefirstteegreaterelpaso.org.
ANSWER to trivia question: Vijay Armritraj. He played at Wimbledon before and after his role in Octopussy.